I Kill For Sithis
by ReaverPoet
Summary: A clerk at a clothing store embarks on a life of crime that will lead to becoming an assassin for the Black Hand. Minor lesbian content.


I Kill For Sithis: Chapter 1

Author: ReaverPoet

Beta by: C. Truman Aitken

Summary: Noir pulp fanfic about a Black Hand assassin

Triggers for ch1: off-stage lesbian sex.

It's around seven at night and I am hiding in the crypts of Whiterun, waiting for the sun to set, so I can kill some stuck-up government functionary. I'd prefer to be biding my time in a sleazy, murky pub, but Whiterun hasn't got this particular amenity. The pub in Whiterun is a twee establishment run for people whose life ambition is to decorate their houses with little carvings of rabbits and knitted frog shaped doilies. There isn't a single dark corner in the entire pub. It's all filled with light and jolly music and the smell of meat that is never allowed to spoil or burn. I hate it.

I'm an assassin for the Black Hand. A creature of shadow and blood.

I kill for Sithis.

How in the name of all the zesty, twinkly elven gods is one supposed to work up a good sinister aura of doom when one is surrounded by grinning bumpkins, sipping their mead responsibly, before going home to their apple cheeked family? No, give me a filthy, smoky tavern in Windhelm any day. That's the place for murderers. For all I know, everyone in there has just come from dividing some poor schmuck from his vital organs. Everyone in a town like that treats an outsider with icy suspicion, and that suits me just fine. I sit at a bar in Whiterun, I'll be fending off passes from empty-eyed farm boys all night.

Anyway, I'm stuck here with nothing but an apple, and a half-ruined copy of "Mudcrabs for Fun and Profit" to entertain myself with. I'm almost missing the grave robber I found down here when I arrived. Although his taste in literature doesn't argue for his value as a conversationalist. Ah well, the deed is done.

I'm going to while away the time by writing my story between the lines of this book. I know, I know; one shouldn't deface a book. But really, I've gotten better reading material out of the slit bellies of wolves. Never understood how wolves manage to eat all the weird things one pulls out of them. Guess they're not very picky.

So, reader, I will write you some small stories of my life, and perhaps it will help to amuse you as you, in turn, wait down here for whatever your fate brings.

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I was keeping the books for a snooty clothing shop in Solitude when she walked into my life. There I was, half asleep at the counter, holding down the store while my bitchy boss went on her usual rounds about town, undermining everyone's confidence in their clothing choices. I was bored and hungover, and I started to mouth the standard spiel about our offerings. Then I got a real eyeful of her.

She had beautiful, cruel eyes that narrowed fetchingly as she sized me up. High cheekbones and an attitude to go with them. A body that moved with a sabre cat menace. I wasn't fooled by the peasant getup she was geared up in; I'd heard stories about her, and I knew who the dame in the apron really was.

"I need a woman of your talents," she said, sidling up to the counter.

"Sorry, Sweetheart, but I just do the books. The seamstress is out on the streets somewhere drumming up business the hard way, " I answered.

"I don't need a new dress," she purred," I need someone who can make numbers dance to my tune. Someone who would know how to make the books tell my version of the story. I hear you've got that talent."

I should have been calculating the odds of walking away clean from a job for the underworld's favorite Fredas night date. Instead, I was watching those sweet lips and imagining stealing a kiss from them.

"Keep talking," I said.

She leaned forward, until I could feel her breath as she spoke. "There's a business in Markarth that has...a terrible mistake in its books. It needs to be corrected, or I'll lose my livelihood and be out on the streets. I can get you in there at night, when the owner is out drinking. Then all you have to do is tidy up the numbers."

I wasn't buying her tale, but I couldn't fight her allure. "What's in it for me," I asked," if I help you out with this problem?"

She licked her lips, pointedly. I told myself it would be dangerous to refuse Maven Black-Briar, and that was true, of course – but that wasn't the reason I accepted her offer. It was the thought of Maven's tongue that brought me to a life of crime. When my boss came into the shop later that day, I told her that her hair style was daringly nostalgic. Then I quit. The look on her face convinced me I had made, if not a good decision, at least the most interesting one.

So, that is how I found myself hiding in an empty mead barrel, waiting for night to fall and the owners of the new meadery to depart for warm beds. Markarth homes and businesses are built of stone, so they are freezing all the time. That's nice in Summer. Not so nice in Winter. I was pretty sure I would die of frostbite waiting for the voices to fade and the door to close. By the time I broke free of the barrel, I couldn't feel my toes, or half my fingers.

I made my way to the back room, where they kept the books, and started finding the entries my patron had wanted changed. As my pen murdered the tiny business, I grinned, thinking about the pleasure and the money I had been promised. I lost focus – I was sloppy; I didn't hear the clerk as he made his way back into the building, having forgotten his hat.

I fled in the darkness through the narrow streets of Markarth without any real plan or destination. I hadn't anticipated the need for a hasty exit, so I hadn't bothered to explore the area or commit the surrounding streets to memory. Yes, I was a special kind of fool back then.

I could hear the footsteps of the clerk behind me the whole way, no matter where I turned, so when I finally saw ahead of me a stone door left carelessly open to the night, I dashed inside and closed the door behind me. There was a fire in the hearth and unspoiled food on the table, but otherwise the house looked disused inside, as if someone had abandoned it with all their possessions years ago. I breathed a sigh of relief at finding no angry householders in residence.

My relief lasted only as long as that breath, however, and I watched in horror as the door popped back open of its own accord and the pale clerk, huffing hard from exertion, scrambled into the house behind me. I picked up the first heavy object at hand - a cooking pot - and beaned him on the noggin while he was preparing to scream accusations at me. He fell to the floor, out cold but still alive.

I made for the door immediately, but it was locked tight. So, gathering what was useful in the room, I headed deeper into the house, hoping for a back door, or a helpful key hanging on a hook. But there was nothing but another locked door at the end of that. I returned to the kitchen to think about my predicament. My clerk was stirring a little, so I banged him gently with the pot again, sending him back to unconsciousness.

As I sat contemplating the problem, an eerie, booming voice suddenly addressed me. "HE IS WEAK AND YOU ARE... WELL, PRACTICAL, AT LEAST. KILL HIM."

I considered this for a moment, and then addressed the ceiling in reply. "Look, no offense, but I have a strict policy of not working for free. Or for disembodied voices. Just a personal policy, you understand."

"YOU WILL BE REWARDED. KILL HIM!"

"Rewarded with what exactly?

"KILL HIM OR YOU WILL DIE!"

I picked a book off of one of the dusty shelves, sat down, and started reading all about some quaint rural daedra cult and their fascinating self-mutilation rituals. I made a point to read the funniest parts out loud, because the fellow with the voice sounded like he could use a laugh.

That lasted for about an hour before Boomy McVoicington lost his patience.

"FINE. I WILL GIVE YOU A WEAPON OF TERRIBLE DESTR…"

"Nope. Not my sort of thing. Sorry."

I finished that book, and picked a new one off a shelf further in. It was about tropical disease. I smiled. This one I read aloud in a variety of funny voices.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

"Well, looks like I'm out of a job. I'll need a new one. Maybe something with a uniform, so I never have to think about my clothes again." I hit the clerk again, wondering how many trips to dreamland he could take before his brain gave up and refused to come back on.

"I HATE YOU. SO. MUCH."

"I can live with that."

"FINE. KILL THE LITTLE MAN AND THEN GO AWAY. I'LL FORWARD YOUR REFERENCES."

I made it quick – the clerk died in his sleep, and never had to go back to his boring little job. As soon as his blood was pooling on the floor, the door popped open. I slipped into the night and got as far as a stolen horse could take me – all the way back to the shack where Maven was waiting for me with those sweet warm lips of hers.

She did me against a tree, fast and efficient, with nothing like tenderness.


End file.
